A Question of Acess: Censorship or Prudence?

[Weird Harold]

Phoenix bans Internet porn at libraries
Council vote may lead to court battle for city

Ginger D. Richardson
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 9, 2004 12:00 AM


A determined City Council declared Wednesday that pornography will no longer be available at Phoenix libraries, an action that could lead to a courtroom showdown with First Amendment advocates.

Phoenix's new policy, which will filter all Internet sessions for adult users, is unusually stringent and appears to be the first of its kind among the nation's largest cities, a number of First Amendment advocates say.

The new regulations, which take away library patrons' ability to surf the Web without restrictions, took effect immediately and could be implemented today.
...

Click for the Rest of the Story here

An Op-Ed Piece in support of the ban: If you want a peep show, use your own quarters.

So, what's your view? Should the City of Phoenix and it's Library System be required to provide Access to Porn on demand, Find a better solution than relying on imperfect Filtering Technology, or Is this a reasonable and prudent measure to preserve a Family Friendly Environment?

 

[boxofrocks]

Kids use the internet, kids read the books.

What's the big deal with a block? I wouldn't want my kids to go to the library and access porn.

 

[Weird Harold]

What's the big deal with a block? I wouldn't want my kids to go to the library and access porn.

Blocking for 17 and under has been in place for a couple of years. I don't think that's much of an issue any more.

I did forget one option on the Poll:

Blocking Porn is a good anti-virus precaution regardless of censorship considerations.

Almost every hit my real-time virus scan makes and EVERY Hijack attempt on my homepage has come somewhere in "Pop-Up Hell" when I get an endless succession of porn promotions I never asked for.

The City Council and Library Board have the right to decide what materials the taxpayers provide to library patrons. If they choose to limit internet access to Dr Suess and Disney.com, then that's just fine with me.

 

[minsue]

The problem with the filters is that they ususally block more than just porn. It's not like they have a list of offending sites that some person is hand-entering and constantly updating in order to block pornography. They filter out all sites containing certain content. I haven't gone to the Phx libraries to see about their particular filtering program, but many of the filters also will block medical sites as sites containing the text "breast" or "penis" are blocked.

The original library policy allowed any adult to request to have the filter turned off on the terminal they were working at. What the Phx City Council did last night was vote unanimously that the filters will not be turned off for anyone.

 

[GingerV]

I don't have a problem with libraries blocking porn sites online, in principle. Provided that the filter they use allows people to search up information on breast cancer, and other such potential filter triggers. Last I heard, most filters weren't up to the task.

G

 

[impressive]

I can't vote given the choices. If public libraries were not accessible to children, then it'd be a non-issue. However, unless & until access by children is restricted, this is going to be an ongoing problem.

How long do you think it's going to be before some Child Protective Services center somewhere is going to crack down on unsuspecting parents for not keeping Internet porn from their kids (if it hasn't happened already)?

 

[minsue]

I can't vote given the choices. If public libraries were not accessible to children, then it'd be a non-issue. However, unless & until access by children is restricted, this is going to be an ongoing problem.

How long do you think it's going to be before some Child Protective Services center somewhere is going to crack down on unsuspecting parents for not keeping Internet porn from their kids (if it hasn't happened already)?

I think it'll be a while. CPS in Phoenix doesn't crack down on anything.


(sorry. CPS is having a bad week in the news and I'm still a bit bitter over the children they let die.)

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I'd agree with a filter that could be switched on and off at request by any adult user, or by any minor with adult supervision. A lot of legitimate research material, a lot of literature and artwork, necessary cultural tool, could easily be deemed as pornographic by some people.

I don't even want to mention medical applications - that's obvious. I could be writing an article on the adult movie industry. I could be looking for a job. I could be looking for the bulletin board of an erotic writers' community.

The people of Phoenix pay for the library, and the city has no right to censor the materials available to them, just as they have no right to take all the copies of The Bible, Philosophy in the Bedroom, Lolita, American Psycho and Harry Potter and burn them in a holy bonfire out in the back.

 

[minsue]

I'd agree with a filter that could be switched on and off at request by any adult user, or by any minor with adult supervision. A lot of legitimate research material, a lot of literature and artwork, necessary cultural tool, could easily be deemed as pornographic by some people.

I don't even want to mention medical applications - that's obvious. I could be writing an article on the adult movie industry. I could be looking for a job.

The people of Phoenix pay for the library, and the city has no right to censor the materials available to them, just as they have no right to take all the copies of The Bible, Philosophy in the Bedroom, Lolita, American Psycho and Harry Potter and burn them in a holy bonfire out in the back.

Hear hear

The problem is that the city council vote as a gut instinct and, considering it was quick and unanimous, probably with the job security at the forefront of their minds. A man was arrested recently for viewing child pornography on a computer at a Phoenix public library. This caused immediate public outrage not only at what he had done, but at where he had done it and that he was able to do so. Voila! No more removing filters for adults.

Personally, I'd have preferred the purveyors of the child pornography to be villified instead of the library.

 

[Weird Harold]

The people of Phoenix pay for the library, and the city has no right to censor the materials available to them, just as they have no right to take all the copies of The Bible, Philosophy in the Bedroom, Lolita, American Psycho and Harry Potter and burn them in a holy bonfire out in the back.

But should the "People of Phoenix" be obligated to purchase books they would prefer to burn -- or pay for the graphics heavy and virus-laden bandwidth of most porn sites?

No library has the budget to provide EVERYTHING and they have to pick and choose what to pay for and provide to the public.

 

[minsue]

But should the "People of Phoenix" be obligated to purchase books they would prefer to burn -- or pay for the graphics heavy and virus-laden bandwidth of most porn sites?

No library has the budget to provide EVERYTHING and they have to pick and choose what to pay for and provide to the public.

Agreed. They aren't paying for the porn, WH. They are paying for the filters. Few people spoke against this before the vote. Several library groups did.

 

[doormouse]

I went to an internet cafe and they couldn't even guarantee I'd be able to access "this" place after 9pm when it's an adult only environment. It's because the cafe is normally filled with 15 yo's who could easily see over my shoulder, so I was told.

Made sense, but if there's a time when it's all adults, I thought it a bit rediculous not to have the filters turned off for those hours only.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

But should the "People of Phoenix" be obligated to purchase books they would prefer to burn -- or pay for the graphics heavy and virus-laden bandwidth of most porn sites?

No library has the budget to provide EVERYTHING and they have to pick and choose what to pay for and provide to the public.

The internet access is already paid for, so what they are doing now is paying to block information.

There's a distinct information between not buying a book that you can't afford and going out of your way to specifically block contents.

And remember, they're not blocking graphics heavy and virus-laden websites. They're blocking pornographic contents. If their concern was bandwidth and virus, they would be investing in anti-virus programs and enforcing download limits to all users.

 

[Weird Harold]

Agreed. They aren't paying for the porn, WH. They are paying for the filters. Few people spoke against this before the vote. Several library groups did.

If they're paying for filtering software, then they're wasting taxpayer money -- the built-in parental controls in Windows are sufficient to meet the reuirements of the law that they filter content for under-17 users.

Also, one minor correction:

A man was arrested recently for viewing child pornography on a computer at a Phoenix public library.

He was NOT arrested for viewing child porn at the library. He was arrested for molesting a child and claimed to have downloaded child-porn at the library during the questioning. The arrest had nothing to do with the library's internet filtering or lack thereof.

Lauren:
And remember, they're not blocking graphics heavy and virus-laden websites. They're blocking pornographic contents. If their concern was bandwidth and virus, they would be investing in anti-virus programs and enforcing download limits to all users.

Bandwidth savings and reduced exposure to malware attacks is a side-effect of blocking porn, not the purpose. However, the side-effect would be justification for banning Porn on it's own merits, IMHO.

Forcing them to permit unrestricted access to the Internet increases the cost of operating the internet service AND forces a higher investment in anti-virus/malware protection.

 

[McKenna]

I agree with what Lauren, Min, and others have said: I don't want someone else determining just what is pornographic for me. That seems a violation of my own rights and freedoms. One man's porn is another man's art.

The idea of having the option to switch off the adult-content filter was/is a good one, but what happens if junior happens to walk by right while Mr. Smith is checking out BigBoobs.com? It reminds me of the thread we had a few months ago about people playing porn in their cars, and being arrested for it because kids driving by in other cars could see it.

Where do we draw the line? Eeeeeesh. I don't know. I'm glad it's not my call, though I do feel the council's choice to have the filter on permanently was a bit too extreme. But then, should the library have to provide private booths for those who want to view porn? (Can you imagine those booths like they have at adult shops?!) Maybe the libraries could start doing that, but charge by the hour for the service!

 

[Weird Harold]

I agree with what Lauren, Min, and others have said: I don't want someone else determining just what is pornographic for me. That seems a violation of my own rights and freedoms. One man's porn is another man's art.

I don't see a failure to provide you with porn as denying you porn -- at least not anymore than me turning the channel if you try to watch a soap opera on my TV (something that irritates my daughter who loves soaps, but she can go home and wtch soaps, she doesn't have to pollute my picture tube with them. )

The idea of having the option to switch off the adult-content filter was/is a good one, but what happens if junior happens to walk by right while Mr. Smith is checking out BigBoobs.com?

I think there should be some provision made for accessing sites that are blocked by the filter -- much the same way that most libraries can (and will) request an inter-library loan for a book they wouldn't normally allow on their shelves or request a copy of a specific article from a publication they don't carry.

There are a LOT of other options the City of Phoenix could have chosen, but I don't have a problem with the digital equivalent of refering a customer to the local adult bookstore because the libray doesn't have what they're looking for.

 

[McKenna]

I don't see a failure to provide you with porn as denying you porn -- at least not anymore than me turning the channel if you try to watch a soap opera on my TV (something that irritates my daughter who loves soaps, but she can go home and wtch soaps, she doesn't have to pollute my picture tube with them. )

But what about in publicly funded places? Aren't libraries, in part, funded by my tax dollars? What's to stop them from filtering sites they think are inappropriate which are not pornographic, such as sites supporting muslim jihad, or the NRA, or "How to Build A Bomb.com". Where does it end?



Disclaimer: I am not necessarily voicing my support for any of the above-mentioned sites, I'm simply raising a point for argument/debate/discussion.

 

[Weird Harold]

But what about in publicly funded places? Aren't libraries, in part, funded by my tax dollars? What's to stop them from filtering sites they think are inappropriate which are not pornographic, such as sites supporting muslim jihad, or the NRA, or "How to Build A Bomb.com". Where does it end?

It ends where the community that elects the people who make the decisions and policy for the Library system rise up and vote them out of office -- or lynch them as circumstances dictate.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Who determines what's pornographic? If we choose to use the same criteria the FCC does, then any museum that has a master work by an atrtist who shows nipples will be blocked. Any person trying to gain information on STD's will find his access blocked as most sites with information on them are graphic.

We, the tax payers, pay for the library, its connections and its books, unless it is a privately funded system. The function of the library is not to edit content, but to provide access to information. If their filtering software has reached the point where it is blocking Mammoth Mammaries and Gozongas, and HomemakerHooters, but still allows access to sites that discuss breat cancer, breast feeding options and other information that is useful, I don't really see a problem with blocking base sexual content.

If the software has not evolved to the point where it can distinguish between purient content and informational content, then blocking software is a bad Idea.

Not to try and bring politics into this, but I note sites that might be "accidentally" blocked would be planned parenthood, sites offering information on birth control, sites offfering information on abortion and its alternatives, sites discussing aids. In short, the library system could be hamstrung to mirror the abstinance only policy of the white house.

Information and its free distribution is one of the cornerstones of a democracy. An educated voting public, with access to all view points and the information that these view points are based upon is critical to keeping an informed electorate. Any time an organ of government seeks to curtail the free flow of information, we should all cast a wary eye upon them and demand the most stringent scrutiny before we simply allow ourselves and out fellow citizens to be rendered less informed.

-Colly

 

[R. Richard]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by McKenna
But what about in publicly funded places? Aren't libraries, in part, funded by my tax dollars? What's to stop them from filtering sites they think are inappropriate which are not pornographic, such as sites supporting muslim jihad, or the NRA, or "How to Build A Bomb.com". Where does it end?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It ends where the community that elects the people who make the decisions and policy for the Library system rise up and vote them out of office -- or lynch them as circumstances dictate.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The problem with censorship is that it is rarely imposed all at once. The preferred method is to institute rather mild measures and then relentlessly tighten the noose, tiny bit by tiny bit. No single iten is worth a big fight. However, the end result is strangulation of individual liberty.

JMHO.

 

[shereads]

Imagine a filter that removed certain content - determined by some committee or individual - from the pages of printed literature. With bureaucracy moving at its typical snail's pace, the filters might be updated half a dozen times a century, or as often as the committee could agree that community standards had changed over time. Mainstream romantic erotica authors like Robin Schone would never have made it to the shelves of book stores, and we'd all be reading Readers' Digest-grade erotica. ("My Most Memorable Spanking.")

I'm all for protecting children from pornography, but there ought to be better ways to do it than by depriving adults of the freedom to choose their own entertainment. As for the idea that the public pays for library users to view pornography online...So what? We also pay for the public to check out badly written novels and Mein Kampf and erroneous history. That's what happens in a free society.

(Well, a sort-of-free society. As Bill Maher pointed out this week on Conan O'Brian's program, we can't call ourselves a free society as long as we prohibit adults from smoking pot or doing anything else to their own bodies that they choose to do.)

 

[Weird Harold]

The problem with censorship is that it is rarely imposed all at once. The preferred method is to institute rather mild measures and then relentlessly tighten the noose, tiny bit by tiny bit. No single iten is worth a big fight. However, the end result is strangulation of individual liberty.

JMHO.

Too true, but censorship in Libraries has always been cyclical and it's always (eventually) yielded to public demand -- so far.

I've lived through a couple of cycles of book-banning in Libraries so far and I don't really see this as "censorship" anyway.

Colleen is correct that Libraries exist to make information availble to everyone -- but the catch is that each library has to provide the information it's constuency wants it to provide. In this case, the elected officials of that constituancy has said "keep the filters turned on."

It's up to the constituancy to change the elected leadership -- or make the elected leadership change their minds if the constituancy is not geting the information they want.

In the meantime, the information is still available -- it's just not available for free at the library.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Too true, but censorship in Libraries has always been cyclical and it's always (eventually) yielded to public demand -- so far.

I've lived through a couple of cycles of book-banning in Libraries so far and I don't really see this as "censorship" anyway.

Colleen is correct that Libraries exist to make information availble to everyone -- but the catch is that each library has to provide the information it's constuency wants it to provide. In this case, the elected officials of that constituancy has said "keep the filters turned on."

It's up to the constituancy to change the elected leadership -- or make the elected leadership change their minds if the constituancy is not geting the information they want.

In the meantime, the information is still available -- it's just not available for free at the library.

That's the problem in a nutshell Harold. It isn't avialable for free at the library.

Before I went on disability I had a good job and was able to afford a computer, as well as the many gadgets needed to make it link to the internet. If I lost mine now, I would not be able to replace it.

So many of the things that might be blocked accidentally, are the very things people who can't afford their own computer might need.

Poor girls get pregnant too. If information on prenatal care, breastfeeding, adoption, abortion, etc are denined by these filters then I don't see the library as performing its main function of offering information to people in general.

If sex education isn't being taught in schools in any meaningful way and you remove the library as a resource, it seems to me you are materially aiding and abbeting the explosion in teen pregnancies, spread of sexually transmitted diseases and general hopelessness of people who go to the library because they can't afford a computer and connetion of their own.

You are absolutely correct that is up to the electorate to remove these men from office if they are set on this policy and it is disagreeable. It is up to taxpayers and voters to demand an accounting of exactly what the filters do and how they work. And if they are filtering information rather than just filtering porn, it is up to everyone who disagrees with censorship to act.

At the same time, those most adversely affected are very likely to be those with the least political clout. Those with the real political clout are most likely those who haven't darkened the door of a library since they graduated.

-Colly

 

[Weird Harold]

That's the problem in a nutshell Harold. It isn't avialable for free at the library.

...

So many of the things that might be blocked accidentally, are the very things people who can't afford their own computer might need.

Poor girls get pregnant too. If information on prenatal care, breastfeeding, adoption, abortion, etc are denined by these filters then I don't see the library as performing its main function of offering information to people in general.

...

You make it sound as if that information is only available on the internet.

Libraries also have these antique things called books. The nice thing about books is that you can take them home or over to the copy machine and copy the parts that are important. Then you can read the information without worrying about when your time on the library computer is going to run out and take the time to really understnd what you're reading.

I've never encountered a library that would refuse to request a book they didn't have from another library -- from the Library of Congress if necessary. The most an ineter-library loan request has cost me is $2.00.

Granted, waiting two months for information on the morning after pill is probbly not going to be terribly useful, but libraries have been providing free information and intertainment for yers befor ethey got internet connections. I assume most of them can still do so without using the internet.

 

[amicus]

Information and its free distribution is one of the cornerstones of a democracy. An educated voting public, with access to all view points and the information that these view points are based upon is critical to keeping an informed electorate. Any time an organ of government seeks to curtail the free flow of information, we should all cast a wary eye upon them and demand the most stringent scrutiny before we simply allow ourselves and out fellow citizens to be rendered less informed.

-Colly


__________________


I think Colly's post is important enough to post again....

However....if citizens were not forced to pay for library services and libraries were like McDonalds, as they should be in a free society, there would be no problem.

And yes, I know...totally impractical as the poor would not be able to buy a big Mac.

It is good to see some questioning the right of government to impose censorship. Last time I checked, my kids belonged to me, not the State.

Maybe I should determine what they consume and what they do not?

amicus the incorrible advocate of freedom....